


But I say why believe in place of proof

by AnbarElectrum



Series: Crashing Down [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Episode: v06e02 Uncovered, Gen, In Which Everyone Is Very Convinced They Are Doing The Right Thing, Internal Conflict, Mental Link, Panic Attacks, Sharing a Body, Trust Issues, but like literally
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21850597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnbarElectrum/pseuds/AnbarElectrum
Summary: Ironic that it is now, on their knees in the snow with their head threatening to split in two, that they are as close to being one as they have ever been.Amid the chaos as Ruby prepares to call Jinn from the Relic of Knowledge, the most important exchange of all is happening where no one but Oscar and the dead man he's slowly becoming can hear.  And to them, it is deafening in its intensity—enough to threaten to drown them both out.Anger.  Fear.  Distrust.  Oscar hopes the truth will be enough to put these things to rest.  Ozpin is certain all it will do is burn his remaining bridges to dust.Neither is entirely wrong.Cross-posted from my ff.net account.
Relationships: Ozpin & Oscar Pine
Series: Crashing Down [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1574203
Comments: 7
Kudos: 87





	But I say why believe in place of proof

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 11/5/18 as Crashing Down (see end notes)  
> Title is drawn from the song Crashing Down by Heather Dale.
> 
> Per the summary, this is Uncovered and especially the end of that episode from Oscar's POV. The canon events, however, are essentially a background blur; the focus is squarely on Oscar and Ozpin. As a result, the prose may seem quite disjointed at times. This is, for better or worse, intentional. Also, fun fact: this was my first RWBY fic! Not just first published, but first written, period, so I wanted it to be the first one I brought over as well.  
> Thanks to the nature of cross-posting and linear time, this is about a year overdue in terms of relevance; feedback is nonetheless always appreciated. As always, I hope you enjoy!

Oscar can’t pinpoint why, exactly, but the moment the conversation turns to Professor Lionheart he begins to feel uneasy. Ozpin doesn’t break stride, but Oscar can feel his shoulder muscles tensing, his fingers curling tight. The answer unfurls itself gradually, though for once Ozpin spells out most of it aloud. As usual, though, the most important piece of the puzzle goes unspoken.

Leonardo Lionheart, Ozpin argues, was a good man who made mistakes. Mistakes that amounted to terrible, truly reprehensible actions. Unpardonable sins. But surely a handful of sins, however severe, shouldn’t utterly eclipse the good deeds which came before? Surely a man should not be judged by his errors alone, but also on his merits?

(It is at this point Oscar begins to wonder if it’s still the late Headmaster of Haven they’re talking about. The equally-late Headmaster of Beacon seems to be taking his old students’ condemnations awfully personally.)

Then Ozpin finally snaps, shouts, and that final, most important piece falls into place. Of course Lionheart was not the first to betray Ozpin’s trust, to err and to sin when better was required of him.

That honour belongs to Ozpin himself.

Oscar catches a glimpse of it for a moment, Ozpin’s very own original sin, while the old wizard is distracted by splitting hairs on the subject of trust. There’s a stale weariness to this dredged-up memory, a sadness and strangeness and an age that suggests an old chest pulled out of the attic for the first time in years. He is only half-listening as Ozpin weighs hope against paranoia, tries justifying faith in humanity as a whole alongside difficulty trusting people as individuals. Instead, he skims the surface of the memory, knowing he will someday remember it as though he’d lived it but curious despite himself. Not invested enough to dig deeper, though.

Not until he sees a woman with flushed, living flesh where bone-white skin should be, staring at him with guileless blue eyes that should be hateful and red as raw Burn Dust. Not until Ozpin slams the mental door on him, tenses even more and steps forward, holds his hand out for the Relic— _for the lamp, he called it a lamp, and inside it—_

Jinn. Jinn has knowledge—Jinn _is_ Knowledge. She was made for questions; she will have answers.

**_Oscar—Oscar, don’t do this._ **

_If you won’t trust me, I’ll get the answers another way._

**_I_ do _trust you. How could I not? But some things are private._**

_Funny how that only seems to go one way._

**_You can’t handle thousands of years’ worth of memories yet! I’ll answer any question you ask, Oscar but…not this one. Not yet._ Please.**

Oscar brushes aside his warnings, but hesitates for a moment over the uncharacteristic plea. In the end, though, he’s still determined, reaching for control of his body. He feels a flicker of fear from the old man, a sudden impulse to flee and to hide that does not belong to him.

**_Oscar—_ **

Control doesn’t come. It’s as though he’s pulling his way along a delicate thread, trying to follow it back to where it goes, back to where he belongs. But Ozpin has the other end held fast, and each time Oscar thinks he nearly has it, the wizard snatches it back.

Oscar’s had nightmares about this.

(So has Ozpin.)

_Let go._

**_Be reasonable._ **

_Asking for my own body back seems pretty damn reasonable to me! Let go!_

Ozpin’s grip tightens.

**_Oscar. Do not do this._ **

_You_ promised, _Ozpin! Never again! You promised!_

Distress, at that, and more than Oscar had been expecting. But not enough for Ozpin to convince himself to let go. Perhaps a second or two has passed in the outside world; Oscar can still see his hand reaching out towards Ruby, but it’s shaking now. His feet are rooted in place, and Ozpin’s borrowed voice has fallen silent.

_There._ He lunges, and this time, he wins. It isn’t much, but he has his voice back, and bless them, they all immediately realise it’s _him_ speaking, not Ozpin, because every word is a strain and he doubts he has time to explain.

“He’s trying to stop you!”

Jinn’s name is the last thing Oscar fully remembers saying. He thinks he must have managed to blurt out the summoning instructions, too, because a wave of **horror-despair-rage** slams through him as Ozpin abandons their mental tug-of-war in favour of overwhelming force, seizing control back from him with a brutality that physically knocks them down. But he is limited, always limited, in how much control he can _take._ This is still Oscar’s body, after all. For now, at least. Oscar can hold him here, if nothing else, though he wonders how much of that is due to the strength of his will and how much is the natural paralysis of Ozpin’s panic.

Day by day, Oscar’s emotions and thoughts become harder to sort out from Ozpin’s—in theory, at least. Day by day, the attempt to sort them anyway becomes second nature, and that’s a far gentler learning curve than the slow, almost imperceptible integration process. It is nearly impossible to think through the storm of **_gods no, please no,_ don’t **and _stop, let me go, let me out,_ but feeling…

Oh, _feeling_ is far too easy, and in the deepest, most detached place in the numbed recesses of Oscar’s mind, the sorting begins.

The confusion is his, it has to be; Ozpin is, after all, the one with all the answers. And just as it only makes sense for Oscar to be confused, the other prominent emotions in this mad slew—the dread, the grief, the _shame—_ must belong to Ozpin. But over it all fury and terror claw at each other in pure desperation, and Oscar is not sure where his end and Ozpin’s begin, especially not with the hot pulse of _betrayal_ pounding through both of them.

Ironic that it is now, on their knees in the snow with their head threatening to split in two, that they are as close to being one as they have ever been.

**_Damn you—_ damn _you—!_**

Ozpin’s ‘voice’ is laced with venom Oscar has never heard from him before, and it is _frantic,_ incoherent; Oscar is not sure he meant to ‘speak’ at all.

_Why couldn’t you just tell us—?_

**_WHY COULDN’T YOU LEAVE IT ALONE!?_ **

The outside world only exists in flashes. Nothing, and then Jinn is there, languid and otherworldly. Nothing, and then Ozpin speaks, his inner hysteria bleeding out into reality. Nothing, and then RWBY is _pointing their weapons at Qrow **will help, he has to, he always helps**_ but he doesn’t. He stands by their side, _on_ their side of the invisible line between the three of them and RWBY— _the two of you,_ because Oscar would be on the other side if he had any choice, if he’d _ever_ had a choice. But Qrow’s faith, his _unshakeable_ faith that Ozpin has depended upon for _decades_ , is placed instead in Ruby’s hands. Oscar’s heart is beating in Ozpin’s tempo, and for a sickening moment, it falters.

**_Qrow…?_ **

So much mistrust. So much anger. Already the cracks are widening into an irreparable divide. How pleased _she_ would be if she could see them all now.

The last nail in the coffin is when Qrow’s red eyes drift away from Jinn’s glowing form to settle on Oscar. On Ozpin. They are wide, almost fearful, his mouth slightly agape. Oscar has never seen him so vulnerable—Ozpin has not seen it since Qrow’s school years, had himself aided in this uncertainty’s disappearance—and there is no telling whose fault it is when the heart in their chest clenches, a frigid hand of hurt and loss squeezing as though to turn the precious organ into dust.

Their fear and their anger can no longer be separated; they twine around each other, feeding into the maelstrom that threatens to consume them.

**_They will know. They will know and they will turn, and they_** _hate you now, and I’ll_ be _you and something will have to give. What if they can’t forgive you when you’re me? What if they hate me when I’m you **should have thought of that, should have asked, s**_ _ **hould have** talked when there was still time, told the truth on our terms **of surrender are all they will want now, if they even wait to hear my side of the story** can’t end well, what did you do, what did **you expect would happen when you gave our secrets away to four idealistic teenagers and a**_ **stranger** _who they already trust more than_ you, _‘Professor’—_

“What is Ozpin hiding from us?”

Ruby’s voice, followed by a surge of power more ancient than even the old wizard bound to Oscar’s soul.

Ozpin cries out, anguished, half-mad, and he rips free from Oscar’s hold and his own terrible uncertainty to charge the silver-eyed girl. He does so unarmed, his Aura inactive. It is not an attack. It is a drowning man clawing for the water’s surface, a cornered Huntsman flinging himself away from a lethal blow. It is inevitability, and a last, desperate attempt to thwart it.

All at once, Oscar’s anger dies. In its wake is pity. _It’s done_ , Oscar whispers, steeling himself. Resigning himself. Whatever will become of Ozpin after this is his fate, too, and there will be no escape from it.

“Once upon a time,” Jinn begins, but he can barely hear her over the last, horrible scream that tears through his mind, bitter with frustration and helplessness and the anticipation of loss.

Oscar knows this story, _The Girl in the Tower._ Ozpin knows a very different version of it. The boy with two souls can only pray that Jinn’s telling of it will not be the breaking of them both.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally a standalone story called Crashing Down, but I found myself writing two further installments spontaneously over the course of several months, which I then posted as additional chapters with each chapter taking its name from a pertinent line in the song. However, each chapter is set during or after a different episode of Volume 6, with only the reader's knowledge of canon to bridge the gap between the end of one and the beginning of the next; they read more like closely-linked individual stories to me. For this reason, and for ease of tagging, I have decided to post them here on AO3 as separate works within a series. I'm taking a little time to review and reformat the other two parts for consistency, which also gives a little breathing room so I'm not just spamming the RWBY category with new posts, but they will be along in due course.


End file.
